French president so far rules out sending peacekeepers to Ukraine

There is no such decision and it is not expected, Hollande said

PARIS, April 22. /TASS/. Deployment of peacekeepers in Ukraine is out of the question so far, French President Francois Hollande said on Wednesday, answering reporters’ questions after talks in Paris with his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko.

Hollande said that the Ukrainian side has raised the issue back at the Minsk meeting.

If the UN Security Council makes the corresponding decision, then France will act accordingly. However, there is no such decision and it is not expected, said the president of France. At the moment, there are the Minsk agreements, according to which the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) mission should control the situation.

The initiative to send peacekeepers to Ukraine’s embattled south-eastern Donbas region was put forward by the Ukrainian side. Meanwhile, representatives of the European Commission and the EU Council have repeatedly said that sending peacekeepers to Donbas at the moment is not the subject of negotiations. According to them, the EU is currently exploring only the possibility of providing additional support to the OSCE mission in the east of Ukraine to ensure compliance with the Minsk agreements.